MOOSIC — Mayor James Segilia has five words for three motels in the borough.

“Clean up, or close down.”

Ever since a standoff at the Rodeway Inn, 4130 Birney Ave., in January tied up local police departments for five hours, Mr. Segilia and Police Chief Charles Maurer have sought to close the Rodeway, the Moosic Motor Inn, 4124 Birney Ave., and the Trotters Motel, 4217 Birney Ave.

The three motels are a nuisance that attract a dangerous clientele and tie up police on countless calls, the mayor said.

Roger Patel, owner of the Rodeway Inn, said although he requires tenants to show identification upon check-in, it is impossible for him or his employees to know if tenants will cause trouble.

“It’s not written on their face,” he said, and he can’t discriminate against them.

Repeated efforts to reach the owners of the Trotters Motel and Moosic Motor Inn were unsuccessful.

According to police records, officers have responded to incidents — both founded and unfounded — at the three motels nearly 150 times over the past two years.

In the first five months of 2014, Chief Maurer said police fielded 27 calls from the three motels combined.

“Every time you turn around you’re getting a call for one of those motels,” Chief Maurer said.

The 2014 calls alone led to three criminal arrests at the Moosic Motor Inn and one each at the Rodeway Inn and Trotter’s Motel, Chief Maurer said.

January’s standoff proved particularly alarming for the borough — all of the borough’s police force and responders from nearby communities descended upon the Rodeway Inn on Jan. 28 as Barry Keiper, a Walnutport man, held his girlfriend Jennifer Miller against her will in a motel room and fired his gun at police.

“Shots were going ‘boom boom’ every couple of minutes,” Mr. Segilia, who was on scene that freezing January night, recalled. “If someone happened to walk out of (Terry’s Diner), they could have been shot.”

Police said Mr. Keiper tried to commit suicide by cop. He pleaded guilty to attempted criminal homicide on March 22 and received a sentence of seven to 20 years in prison on April 10.

Mr. Patel maintains Mr. Keiper is not a fair representation of the Rodeway’s tenants. He pointed out one room in a impromptu tour given to a Times-Tribune reporter. That tenant, he said, has stayed at the Rodeway for five years and never caused any trouble.

“Do you think we rent to people who cause trouble?” he asked. “They (the police) made a big issue of a small issue.”

The calls from tenants at all three motels range from reports of domestic violence, drug use and rape to unfounded or to disputes between desk clerks and tenants, tenants locked out of their rooms and other incidents that do not necessarily require police action but still occupy officers’ time.

“We have two cops on at a time,” Mr. Segilia said. “And I don’t like when somebody goes up there by themselves.”

Chief Maurer said the sheer volume of calls is high for one section of the 6.7-square-mile borough.

“We’re hoping they know we’re watching now,” the chief said. After the standoff, Mr. Segilia said borough residents began to clamor for a solution.

“Every time I went into Gerrity’s for a month after the standoff people asked me, ‘Why don’t you just shut them down?’ ” he said.

Nearby residents like Will Stull, 73, of Rocky Glen road near the Trotter’s Motel, seemed indifferent to the motels.

“We’ve been annoyed by the shots down there, but not much” else, Mr. Stull said. “I wouldn’t close them down.”

Robert Corbett, a sales manager at nearby Minooka Subaru, called the motels a “pain,” but said the business has not had too many issues with them or their tenants.

“We’re dealing with it,” Mr. Corbett said.

Mr. Segilia and Chief Maurer have spent time since the Rodeway standoff searching for ways to shut down the motels, working with the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office and borough solicitor John Brazil to research nuisance laws.

But because none of the motels has a liquor license, District Attorney Andy Jarbola said it’s harder to take legal action against them.

If the motels carried liquor licenses, “you could proceed with the misdemeanor of nuisance,” Mr. Jarbola said.

Mr. Jarbola said the motels might still be classified as a nuisance if the borough is able to prove the owners know their operations cause a nuisance and continue to do so, regardless of any notice.

“If they continue to operate the business as they are now, it will be easier to prove the criminal case,” he said.

Mr. Jarbola said his office is looking into sending a letter to the motel owners, alerting them to the borough’s complaints.

The borough can also pursue a civil case, making the burden of proof lighter, Mr. Jarbola said.

Mr. Patel, Rodeway’s owner, said he pays more than $28,000 in property taxes to the borough every year. “Police? We pay for that,” he said. “Moosic borough depends on this property.”

Standing in the parking lot of the motel he has owned for 18 years, Mr. Patel said he would gladly shut down and walk away if the borough paid him “fair market value” for his property and provided him with 10 years’ income to support his family of four.

Meanwhile, Mr. Segilia said he will not give up, despite setbacks with current laws.

“We’ll just keep trying because they’re not going away and we’re not going away either,” he said.

Contact the writer:

sscinto@timesshamrock.com,

@sscintoTT on Twitter

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